Damnation
by chocolate chip homicide
Summary: "I'm bored of them just hating us," she says, crushing the words like jewels in her mouth and letting the juices flood and drip down her chin. Her hand works below, scrawling words on the back of a card. "Let's make them hate each other." / / Let the 25th Hunger Games commence. {SYOT Closed}
1. And Then There Was Light

AN: I'm doing another SYOT! The last one didn't go so great, but here's to trying again. Info is on my profile and in the AN below if you wanna skip to it.

* * *

Remus Aurelius, 57, President of Panem

 _But if the earth ends in fire  
_ _And the seas are frozen in time  
_ _They'll be just one survivor  
_ _The memory that I was yours  
_ _And you were mine_

Remus Aurelius sits at his desk, thumb and forefinger on his brow. A fire burns in the corner, flickering blue and orange with the chemicals that are embedded in the wood. Fire is mostly a curiosity of the old days now, but Remus still finds something beautiful in the tongues that lick and crackle over the wood. The sound calms him as he thinks.

The cards are fanned out in front of him, crisp white paper stamped with black. Endless possibilities laid out in front of him, life and death carved in onyx letters onto the soft marble of the paper. One sheet plucked, a few words muttered, and the Districts plunged into chaos.

He shoos the Avox away and looks through the cards. They range from the benign and the standard to the ones that actually prick his interest. His eye is caught by a few words on one. _In a show of the Capitol's great mercy in allowing the Districts to live, the Hunger Games will not proceed for this year._ Hmm. He picks it up and flicks it into the fire.

To save, or to damn. He runs his fingers over the smooth white lines, dragging on a few that catch his fickle interest. To remind the Districts how the rebellion affected the youngest among them, reap only from five to twelve year-olds. Reap from the existing pool of Victors. Segregate by gender, by tessera or wealth.

He leans back in his chair, unsatisfied. Of course, many of these are suitably awful for a Quell. He's leaning towards the five year-olds one, now wouldn't _that_ tear them apart. Still, it's not- different. It's still just the same pain, same push, same whip brought down on their wretched backs. A Quell should make them suffer and toss and turn for weeks, should drive families apart with he strain, the memory of it should hang in the air for weeks and twist their guts and darken their eyes with shame.

Even with his surgeries, it's doubtful that Remus will see another Quell. He's brushing sixty, and playing chess with the Districts isn't a game that guarantees a long lifespan. These Games need to be different. They need to be spectacular, need to bring delight to the Capitol and suffering to the Districts in the same stroke, need to be the ones to be talked about for years to come. They need to be _extraordinary._ Just like him. Just like-

There's a click behind him as the door to his room opens. There's only one person in Panem who would dare to enter his private chambers without knocking, and he greets her with open arms.

Narcissa Aurelius, First Lady of Panem and the greatest decision he ever made, strides into the room, neck held high, swathed in gold and furs. One arm draped in silk, the other bionic and made of gold-leaf stainless steel, embedded with rubies. She lost it in the rebellion. He stands up and takes her metal hand, their silent, unspoken communication flicking between them in everything from their eyes to their hold to the cards on the table.

Her eyes, violet and burning, score over the cards, and a single eyebrow arches. _Have you chosen?_ He sighs, and shakes his head.

She sweeps into the chair, drawing her furs up around her, and puts a hand on his.

"Some of them are decent," he says, gesturing to the ones he's picked out. "But there's nothing-" he trails off, struggling to articulate himself. He knows she'll pick up on the feeling too.

She murmurs a reply, shifting through the cards.

"The point of the Quarter Quell is to make the Districts want to rebel all over again. That way it crushes them twice as hard when they can't." That was what he'd said when he had proposed the idea of the Quell, all those years back at the negotiation table. _It keeps the horror fresh even when the bodies aren't._

"No," Narcissa says, and he stares up at her, bemused. He can't remember the last time they've disagreed on- well, anything.

"It's not enough to just make them suffer," she says, her voice taking on an almost breathless, succulent tone, lilting at the ends like the schoolgirl she once was. Her lips, rouged and full, roll around the words, drinking them in, slicing them fine and here, here is the woman Remus fell in love with. Here is the woman who managed to kill two dozen rebels as a Peacekeeper before the scum took her arm and still took two of them down with her when she was being tortured, who discovered a way to poison Eight's water supply, who almost single-handedly pulled off the Rape of Eleven and crushed the rebellion in the east. Here is the woman he married.

She scatters the cards across the table with her metal hand, and picks up a pen with the other.

"I'm bored of them just hating us," she says, crushing the words like jewels in her mouth and letting the juices flood and drip down her chin. Her hand works below, scrawling words on the back of a card. "Let's make them hate each other."

He sees what she's written, and loves her.

* * *

 _In order to remind the Districts of their choice to incite violence, the male and female tributes will be voted on by their fellow citizens._

* * *

AN: So, here we go! It's a 25th Quarter Quell, if you hadn't guessed. Rules and form are on my profile, and I'm looking forward to seeing your tributes. Submissions will close on the 20th of July, or when I get enough tributes.

Some questions, if you feel like reviewing this chapter

1\. What did you think of Narcissa and Remus? Do they remind anyone else of Frank and Claire Underwood? Because I may have lowkey based them off them.

2\. What did you think of the whole chapter?

Looking forward to receiving submissions!

-Amie


	2. The Seventh Day

_AN: It's finally here! We did it!_

 _You can skip to the bottom to read the list if you want. I won't judge, especially because I do that EVERY SINGLE TIME. There's a full AN there too._

* * *

Narcissa Aurelius, 54, First Lady of Panem & Head Gamemaker

 _Underneath it all, we're just savages_  
 _Hidden behind shirts, ties and marriages_  
 _How could we expect anything at all_  
 _We're just animals, still learning how to crawl_

In truth, Narcissa hates the Capitol.

It winks at her through the window. It's near eleven and the sky and streets look near the same, black curtains broken by patterns of flashing lights. Underneath the diamond-pierced ink of above, the city sprawls out, twisting and turning in glowing veins and beating, throbbing organs; shopping malls, nightclubs, the November Bombings war memorial. Skyscrapers brush the clouds with simple arrogance, spires touching the sky without stopping to think if they should. Around them, buildings cluster like brightly-coloured shattered stained-glass, black roads the cracks giving them some vague cohesion. The city is an architectural nightmare, buildings bursting half-formed, shoots of colour, from the sides of winding roads, towers dipping into clubs rising into offices. Cars skid through the streets, points of light cutting brief lines through the fabric of the Capitol. If she squints, Narcissa can catch the blurred edges of people, bedecked in jewels and finery, drifting aimlessly from building to building. A clump of pink-clad women stumble out of the doors of a bar and spread out across the street without purpose; hedonistic moths, drawn to bright neon, glowing golden fingers, the pull of open doors and snatches of pleasure.

She hates it this way, anyway. The seething masses, the underlings caught up in the current of their own culture, struggling to keep afloat above a tide of ever-shifting standards and names to know. The shrieking, flocking masses with wax skin and paper lips, constantly cutting and remoulding themselves until nothing remains of a person but the skeleton underneath. She hates the Capitol as it sees itself- a city that never rests, never slows down. Never sleeps, only pauses for breathers between the onslaught of trends.

She raises a hand to draw the curtain- the metalwork one, fashioned for her after the war. Slips of silver light catch themselves on the framework, trickle over cogs, slip and lap the wrist like a mantle. Nails tipped with diamonds scratch the still air, and the ruby at the crook of her elbow glitters. She still remembers the grenade that took it, all those years ago, back in Eleven. She remembers the explosion, the ringing in her ears, the blinding, wrenching pain of tendons torn and joints ripped apart. She remembers dust and screams and gunshots, and blood splattered on the earth, and her own dead forearm dangling, half-handed, from the branches of an apple tree.

When she had the prosthetic fitted, she sparked a trend across the Capitol for metallics. Everywhere, there was glitter-painted eyeshadow and glass rubies embedded into eyebrows, and endless metal gloves or boots meant to imitate her own. The true trendsetters had, under anaesthetic and with their dazzled eyes averted, perhaps the tip of a finger or a thumb removed and replaced with gilded steel. Temporarily, of course. Until fashion's unstoppable, artificial tide swept another way, and jewels were replaced with feathers, or scars, or horns. After Six's Arius Caylen clawed his way out of a mediocre Games, the style was to look as emaciated as he did when they pulled him out of the arena at seventy pounds. With makeup, of course, or surgery- anything but hunger.

That is why she hates them. These people will never know hunger, or pain, or true, raw fear. These people do not have a stump in place of a shoulder. These people do not know the tang of copper at the back of throats. They have never woken screaming, gasping, bursting through smog-filtered dreams of being blown apart a thousand times by a thousand thrown grenades, hands fisting the sheets until Remus can bring her back down to earth. Narcissa was born in Two- a District that always redoubled the love the Capitol had for it, but still a District where men and women had to work, and children could scuff their knees instead of having them replaced with scales.

Narcissa sighs, and turns away from the window. She'll never feel truly at home in the heart of the Capitol, amongst the vapid, giggling masses, never be able to stand these people the way her husband can. He's always amazed her in that way, with his capacity for manipulation, his talent for seeding out the heart and soul and strengths and weaknesses of his populace and politicians; for crafting narratives and images out of thin air, for slipping on a mask that even she has barely learned to read. She can barely stand an hour amongst the socialites that he mingles so easily with, and she's hardly better amongst the powerful. The machinations and scheming of the silver-tongued, sharp-eyed men and women that Remus spends his days amongst and knows how to play like fiddles. All she can do is make people suffer.

The only place where she really feels at ease in the Capitol, besides their mansion, is the place she heads now. The Gamemaker's quarters.

The entire team is there when she gets there, kept awake and alert on a steady stream of coffee and some more interesting drugs. They salute her as she walks in, but briefly, so that they can return to their works. The reapings are tomorrow, and every member of her hundred-strong team plus her eleven fellow Gamemakers are here, bathed in the glow of pale blue screens, checking over the opening ceremonies and the tributes' outfits and the mutts of the arena.

Her fellow Gamemakers greet her as she takes her place at the head of their table. Tane, her right-hand man, nods to her and resumes his furious typing, and Aelania whispers a hello before she takes her hand off the phone and continues her snapping at Romero Worship.

There's really not much for her to do. Not until the reapings start, at least. But Narcissa can never sleep the night before a Games, and especially not one such as this. Instead, she takes the master screen and pulls up the tribute list.

Twenty-four names flash in front of her, twenty-four bright-eyed faces, twenty-four sets of statistics. It's been delightful, watching the voting. As First Lady and Head Gamemaker, Narcissa has access to the files of every single person in Panem, and can guess at to why certain people were chosen. Some are obvious choices- rapists, murderers, common and uncommon criminals and brutes. Not all of the tributes are sinners. Some Districts are more pragmatic, selecting a girl who has no one to mourn her, and another who has a fair shot. Some of the children are innocent, lambs brought to burn for the sins of their siblings, their parents. The girl chosen for the cruelty of her mother, the boy for the hatred of his brothers. And some of them stand innocent of anything, but accused nonetheless. Those ones made Narcissa smile- how eagerly the Districts latch on to any whisper of cruelty and use it to justify their bring their fellow citizens to the slaughter. The boy chased by the lies told by the girl he spurned, the sixteen year-old brought low by the rumors and betrayal of her friend. Even the Career Districts have used the opportunity to select the blood of those they hate, if only to terrify them before the volunteers step in.

The show itself is bound to be spectacular. Over a third of those chosen in outer Districts have crimes on their record whether they've suffered for them or not. Narcissa doesn't bet, but if she did, she would be willing to put money on the tributes not being so peace-loving once they find out that their own countrymen have turned on them.

She scrolls through the lines of faces, eyes and mouths blurring together. Psychopaths and sweet-faced children, murderers and thieves, sons and siblings all stream through her fingertips.

Narcissa may never have the talents of her husband. She'll never be able to weave her way through a crowd, charming each and every member with an easy, practiced grace. She'll never be able to take a rival and, with a few choice words and a trade, turn him into an ally. She'll never be able to stand on a podium at the end of a war that left a country blighted and burned and pick the right words and phrases to use to blow alive a spark of hope.

But this- this is what she can do. Take joy and hope and life and turn and twist it over on itself, let it blacken and burn into ash. Torture the rebel commander of Eight in a single hour to make him give up the answers he's been withholding for a fortnight. Open up the gates of the villages in Eleven and let two thousand blooded Peacekeepers rape and burn and pillage in a roaring stampede of savagery until the last pockets of resistance are stamped out. Create, along with Remus, the Hunger Games out of the the briefest flicker of inspiration from the old Romans of the past. Narcissa cannot lie, but she can dig her fingernails under the skin of every District in Panem and peel back their skin like a facade. She can slice into flesh with razorblade fingernails and pull back to show their bones and let the daylight shine on every bleeding muscle and vein and tendon, every ugly bloody crack and crevice, dig her hands in until she's steeped to the wrist in red and black, the body laid bare and dripping with the smell and sight of rot. She doesn't change people, she reveals them, scalds away the lies they build up around themselves, let the human burn and slough off to leave nothing but an ugly, blackened soul. She does that each year with two dozen children, two dozen new budding souls laid bare, and it's what she lives for.

She turns the screen off. Twenty-four bright young lights fade, then flicker out.

* * *

 _AN: I'm just gonna go all out and say Narcissa is one of my favourite OC's that I've ever created. Even if she is a bit creepy. Especially if she is a bit creepy._

 _Tribute list is below. I had to do some major District re-shuffling, so apologies if your tribute is in a different District than the one you subbed them for. And even bigger apologies if your tribute didn't get in at all. I had an amazing response to this, (especially from old gen thanks to certain some.. hi Cloe) and honestly I was spoiled for choice. So sorry if your tribute didn't get in, it probably wasn't their fault._

District 1 Female: Hosanna Carson

District 1 Male: Brandi Lambrou

District 2 Female: Eveline Varnell

District 2 Male: Marcello Orvati

District 3 Female: Nina Greastrom

District 3 Male: Iwan Bedore

District 4 Female: Stella May Townsend

District 4 Male: Liam Caless

District 5 Female: Curie Salomea

District 5 Male: Kezaeh Wren

District 6 Female: Bea Kyva

District 6 Male: Cyrus Ferreira

District 7 Female: Laurel Camphor

District 7 Male: Bryce Mao

District 8 Female: Challis Weave

District 8 Male: Kyle Gauvin

District 9 Female: Lyanna Vaith

District 9 Male: Leo Flynn Campbell

District 10 Female: Nerys Herrin

District 10 Male: Amos Hastings

District 11 Female: Aiden Calvera

District 11 Male: Magnus 'Syca' Merkurr

District 12 Female: Melody Naughton

District 12 Male: Micah Starling

 _Blog is here:_ damnationhungergames . blogspot . com

 _and the pageviews tell me that some of u BITCHES have been looking at it already. Sneaky fuckers._

 _But blog reviews warm my cold and bitter heart xx_


	3. Sin and Suffering

_AN: YES WE DID IT KIDS I GOT THE CHAPTER OUT_

* * *

Micah Starling, 16, District Twelve Male

 _'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable  
_ _And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table  
_ _No one can find the rewind button, girl  
_ _So cradle your head in your hands  
_ _And breathe...just breathe_

"Mom?"

Micah's vision blurs with grey light as the morning comes into view. The bed's yellowed sheets fade into focus, then his own hand, olive and gaunt, nails bitten down to stubs. The scent of coal dust stings his lungs as his heart starts again, muffled with the smell of fabric and the lived-in smell of his room, the painted prison that keeps him smothered and safe.

He can feel her hand on his shoulder. He looks up, expecting the familiar face, a warm _good morning_ , a bustle to the curtains to draw them open. Or maybe Jess, leaping onto the mattress before she goes off to work, shoving him awake, a quick "see you later!" before her shift at the mines.

And then he remembers. They're not here.

Barbed wire tightens around his ribs, pulling his chest so close his breath feels like raw skin scratching the razored metal. He touches his shoulder, feeling for the hand. It's only a pile of shirts, fallen down from the wardrobe, leaning on him. He needs to re-fold them now. Mom hates it when he leaves his clothes lying around like that.

Light pierces the gap in his curtain, sneaks underneath the fabric and feels for his eyes, pulling him insistently out of unconsciousness. Dust motes swirl in the air. He has school today, but even the thought makes him nauseous. More children staring at him, their grey eyes branding his skin, opening every wound he's inflicted on himself. Teachers pausing at his name on the register. Kids knocking shoulders with him, shoving him sprawling onto the floor, his clutched books scattered. Don't they know? Don't they know that he hates himself more than they'll ever be able to?

Still, he can't get out of bed yet. He can't get out of bed before he says the names. Thirty-four of District Twelve's people. He counts them as the light shines on his face every morning, to remind himself. Feels the shape of the words in his mind, before he can rise to the day.

Selah Altane. Shane Copperfield. Rody Chalk. Lily Grant. Garrel Appleton.

The window on his right wall is shattered. A clot of dirt sticks to the glass. It brokee a week ago, when two boys raced up with rocks in each hand, hurling stones and abuse at him, screaming at him, banging on his door. They sprinted when they hit the window, clapping each other on the back. One of them was crying, furious, burning tears that he wiped away with the back of his sleeve.

He'll have to get the window fixed. It's not even his house, not really. He shouldn't be here. The mayor gave him special permission- a privilege, to stay in this musky, achingly empty shell of a house, every wall prickling with memories, the air thick with drifting ghosts.

Farreth Poole. Flint Glovelyn. Cole Spenler. Elaenah Slate. Kevin Blacktree.

He doesn't blame the boys that smashed his window, or the girl who stole his schoolbooks. Or even the man who came at him with a knife a week after, pressing him against the wall so close he could see the whites of his eyes, spitting and snarling with the metal at his throat. Micah found himself shaking and crying, and thinking over and over again, staring at the blade, the promise of relief. _Please._

Clara Templeton. Tyron Wars. Ros Sunderly. Fellar Fischer. Christa Fischer. Elia Fischer

He can hear footsteps coming towards his door, muffled voices. He catches his name thrown in there, and then the sound of spitting.

"Marty-" A woman's voice, chastising, then something he can't catch.

"Clara was our _niece_ ," the man snaps. _Go away_ , Micah thinks, hands pressed over his ears. Please just go _away._

The man bangs against the door, hard raps slamming into the silence, hard angry raps banging on the inside of Micah's skull. The woman talks again, and the voice fade away. Micah pulls the covers over his head and weeps, shoulder shaking, barely louder than a whisper, tears leaking into the pillow. Pathetic, miserable, fragile little boy clutching the covers with skinny, grasping fingers, trying to hide from his punishment.

Felicity Bridge. Archie Cobalt. Quincey Darnell. Nat Tarper-Brown. Orchid Rogers.

But still. It hurts. Knowing that it's right doesn't dull the sting, can't quell the restless thoughts that flit around his head. He can't help wanting, like a petulant kid, for someone- anyone- to just look at him or smile or let him know that they understand. He'd die for that, that briefest stroke of affection, someone's warm, genuine smile.

It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his _fault._

 _Black smoke pours upwards against the sky, streaming into the grey clouds like blood. The earth crumples in on itself against the heat of the explosion, cracking and shuddering and splitting into fractions._

 _"Micah!"_

 _"Yes sir?"_

 _The overseer's eyes are wild, a vein pulsing at his temple._

 _"Which shaft was the explosion in?"_

 _The control board's button glare in the amber light. Smoke fills the sky._

 _"Which shaft, boy? Seventeenth? Answer me, boy, which goddamned shaft did you set it off in? Was it- Oh for the love of Panem, it wasn't was it? Which shaft? Which fucking shaft? Micah-"_

 _Looking up at the burning mountain, the small boy starts to scream._

Jaena Morrigan. Chock Turner. Efran Stable. Teya Caswell. Basil Summers. Arianna Westbrook.

He's almost finished. Just seven more names, seven more people, seven more men and women and hunchbacked grandfathers and laughing teenagers, sisters and fathers and lives seared into his conscience.

He won't have to do this for much longer. He remembers sitting at home when they announced the rules of the Quell, the realisation dawning on him that the entire District would have his name, his face running through their minds. He remembers counting down the days and the hours to today like he used to do with his birthday, to when he knew he'd be called up to the reaping stage. He doesn't want to die, but what does that matter? It's justice.

Irene Snapdragon. Roy Williams. Clifford Bax. Rosemary Hawthorne. Alysanne Foxtrot.

He couldn't remember their faces if he tried. The fires burned too hot for that, sloughing and scorching the flesh off their skulls into black paste- and even if those were left untouched, the bodies were too crushed to drag out from under the rubble. They had to identify them by stray fingers, by wallets, by teeth.

Thirty-four men and women. Thirty-four men and women in the mines that day when Micah the apprentice boy flipped the wrong switch and set off a controlled detonation in an active shaft. Thirty-four men and women, crushed under a vast shrug of the earth. Thirty-four families strung with medals and paid for their grief. Thirty-four people and an entire District turned against him, and a black ocean of grief too heavy to carry in one lifetime, welling up behind his eyes and scalding his throat and filling his lungs with salt water, burning in his nostrils and he's drowning under the weight of the names that he makes himself say because he's so deep now that it's easier to just swim down.

Two more names. Two more names to think, two more lives before he can leave. Micah stares up at the ceiling, and thinks of the light that woke him up in this cold, empty house, and the bed that his sister does not sit on.

Catherine Starling. Jessaline Starling.

He gets out of bed alone, and steps into the blinding light of the new day.

* * *

Aiden Calvera, 18, District Eleven Female

 _Bad news comes don't you worry even when it lands  
_ _Good news will work its way to all them plans  
_ _We both got fired on exactly the same day  
_ _Well we'll float on good news is on the way_

The District Eleven prison is a dark grey blot against the golden fields of the landscape, a squat, metal building ringed with a dust-trodden open area and barbed-wire fence. It's less of a punishment than it is a holding for those awaiting what little courtesy the Panem justice system allows them, those accused of crimes with thin evidence and the stupidity or the desperation to try and contest their convictions. Most of the inmates will be dead in a few weeks, wasting away the last nights of their lives aching on straw mattresses as filthy water drips off the walls around them. Executed by firing squad for their crimes against their fellow citizens and the authority of the glorious Capitol. Theft. Fence-jumping. Assaulting a Peacekeeper. Rape. Destroying Capitol property.

Murder.

Aiden lies on her back one such mattress, eyes wide open, eyes tracing the crack in the ceiling. A spider skitters down the wall and runs across her ankle, and she slaps it off. Water drips down onto a puddle in the corner. The light filtering through the tiny window says it's maybe midday, just time for her regularly scheduled eleven o'clock nap before lunch. Unfortunately, some people have other ideas.

The sound of sobbing bubbles through the silence, desperate, wracked cries and gasps streaming like water from the earth maybe five cells over. It's drowned by the taunts of the other inmates, banging on the walls and hooting, braying in vicious mockery, drawn by the open display of unforgivable weakness.

"For fucks _sake,_ " her bunkmate groans. She rolls over, shoving her face in her hands.

"Can't sleep?"

"Can anyone?" Her bunkmate, a stout woman named Clementine with a wicked scar across her eye, snorts. "Fuckin' freshmeat's been crying for an hour now."

Aiden gives a shrug of sympathy. She feels bad for what's going to happen to the girl after the prisoners are let out of their cells, having kept a hundred-plus convicts with nothing left to lose up for most of the night, but it's hard to muster up any empathy right now. The girl's rich anyway, and her crime is minor, which means stocks or a whipping at most.

She lies back and goes on with the pressing business of staring at the ceiling. What she wouldn't give to have stocks or whipping. Even a firing squad at this point would at least give her some certainty. But the Games are tomorrow and she knows her name will be on everyone's lips, on their minds as they go down to the voting booths and pick a name, faces flushed, looks thrown over their shoulder just to check no one's watching, because you wouldn't want anyone to judge you for condemning a kid to their deaths, oh no.

She pulls an arm over her ears. The girl's started screaming now, and that brings up way more stuff than she has the energy to deal with. Screaming only brings back the memories.

 _The screech of nails against the chalkboard, the split of shattered glass, a violin a millisecond before the tortured strings twang-_

 _And then nothing. And then rushing in and stock-still, throat choked off, blood bubbling from the girl's neck, ex-girl, girl no longer, corpse with the machinery still running. Running up to her, cradling her head, checking her pulse, the girl's eyes bulging in their sockets, arms grasping randomly like some spasming puppet. The girl's blood coating her hands in a thin, slick sheen, and her eyes moving to where her dagger is thrown across the floor, and now she's standing cradling a dead girl she didn't kill with a dagger she didn't use and a Peacekeeper shouts behind her and there is no way to explain this._

She didn't even kill her. At least pick someone like Clementine, who definitely killed that Peacekeeper and is proud of it too. But no. Some psychotic bitch kills a girl the whole world knows you have a rivalry with, and then you get found holding the body, trying desperately to stem the flow of blood. Kristina and her didn't get along, sure, but did the District really think she'd kill her over it?

Apparently, they did. The handcuffs were on her before her useless excuses could die on her lips, and they threw her in a cell. She didn't even try to protest it. She knew it wouldn't work, even if she knew who did actually kill her. Arlina fucking Michaels who would probably stab a puppy if it was taking the spotlight away from her, with her wide, innocent eyes and dried blood underneath her fingernails. Eyes rubbed red and raw, head tilted just so, eyes welling up with tears as she made sure that everyone knew which jealous, insane girl killed poor Kristina.

Aiden's going to slap the smirk off her face if she makes it out of her alive. She doesn't even bother complaining, nothing she says is going to change her fate. Arena or the noose, her life is in the hands of her District now.

The bells for cell doors open ring out. Crying girl screams as someone slams a hand into a wall. There's the crack of a baton, a sharp word, and then crying girl is brought back down to sniffles.

There's no justice in Panem.

* * *

The prisoners get a couple hours in the yard every day to stretch their legs, Peacekeepers on watch. There's nothing but a barbed-wire fence separating them from the outside world. It's a small matter of bribing the guards who sit atop the sentry posts with semi-automatic machine guns to let a few family members up to the fence to talk. Aiden's mom sold her favourite necklace for the visit she's getting today.

Her mom's waiting for her early, Aliyah clinging to her skirts, her dad with an arm wrapped around her. Across the fence, others are strewn, waiting for their whatever relative is cooped up in here. Aiden spots the tear-streaked faces of crying girl's parents, and Clementine's two boys waiting for her at the other side of the courtyard.

"Aiden," her mother breathes, the tension in her brow smoothing as her daughter strides up to her and gives the equivalent of a warm hug- clasps her fingers through the wire of the fence. Aiden kisses her awkwardly on both cheeks and bends down to nuzzle at little Aliyah, hold her tiny hands against her own.

"How have you been? Are you doing okay?" Her mother's eyes are soft, bright, expecting the worst.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Aiden smiles.

"Are you sure?" Her father's knuckles are white, hands wrapped around the bars, and even now she can feel them leaning towards her, wanting to envelop her in their arms and hold her close to the horrors of the outside world.

She considers it for a second. Tell them. Tell them about the screaming girls at night and the old bunkmate who got hanged last week for stealing an apple because she was so hungry she'd have died anyway. Tell them about spiders the size of her palm and the stink of mould and guards with clinging eyes and rough hands. Remind them of the date- that tomorrow is reaping day and she has no idea if she's going to go into the arena but the way her luck has been going she might as well start picking out a headstone now. Because of one bitter, unstable girl and a lie and the Games-damned injustice of Panem.

Tell them that she can still feel Kristina's blood on her hands, glistening crimson and running down her wrists and drying into dark rivers on her skin; her pulse throbbing and burning and aching with the last, desperate beats of life before it stuttered out.

She can't. What good would it do? She looks at them and she can't. Not with her mother's face sallow and twisting with anxiety, cracks starting to show in the smile she wears, not when her father says her name like a drowning man coming up for air, like he'll never see her again.

It's better to stay silent.

"Gosh Dad," Aiden says, flashing him a breezy smile. "Honestly, prison's better than school half the time. The food's kinda shit but my roomie's cool. She taught me all the District Eleven gang signs and like ten different words for cocaine."

The lines on her mother's brow smooth over, and her eyes settle.

"Well, that's… that's good to hear. And don't use words like shit here dear, Aliyah's with us." The toddler smiles toothily at the forbidden word, and immediately starts sing-song whispering it under her breath.

"Sh- sorry, mom." She bends down to her cherubic little sister. "What I just said? Don't say it. It was a very naughty word, okay Al?"

"Mm-hmm,' Aliyah nods. Aiden winks at her.

She manoeuvres the conversation back into the mundane- the District gossip over their escort, the daily stresses of her father's job, what her mother bought to wear on reaping day. They skim their fingers over the wound but do not touch, and for a moment they can almost pretend that the fence between them isn't there at all.

The scream of a bell breaks their reverie. Families on either side of the fence say their goodbyes and trickle away, drawn by the barks of the guards. Her father's face crumples.

"I gotta go," Aiden says. "But I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

Her mother wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and nods. Aiden kisses her parents in turn through the fence, the cold metal biting into her skin. Her father holds Aliyah up, and Aiden grabs her chubby hand through the gaps.

"Bye-bye Aiden," Aliyah says, biting her lip. She looks over at her parents, leans towards the fence and gives Aiden a knowing smile.

" _Shit_ ," she whispers, beaming proudly. Aiden stifles a laugh, and her little sister's smile is bright winter sunbeams and a laugh like running water.

And then they're gone. Aiden's eyes cling to their passage through the town as they drift away, with the faintest wistful look on her face and an ache in her stomach like someone punched her in the gut.

* * *

Stella May Townsend, 17, District Four Female

 _Just like fire, burning out the way  
_ _If I can light the world up for just one day  
_ _Watch this madness, colourful charade  
_ _No one can be just like me any way_

The naked, red-haired girl lying sprawled next to her twitches slightly, and turns in her sleep. Stella grins, tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smooths the rest over her bare, freckled back. Besides her, one arm trailing off the side of the bed, is the pretty blonde girl she picked up yesterday, at the bar that's become her usual haunt. Larissa, or something, and she's pretty sure redhead's begins with an A. It doesn't matter much anyway. She only remembers their names for as long as it takes them to scream hers.

She checks the clock. 4:09. It's pitch black, a hangover is gnawing insistently at her skull, and she can't figure out why the fuck she woke up this early.

The knock comes at the door again, a nervous rap. _Oh, right,_ Stella thinks. _That's why_

"Comin'" she calls. "Gimme a sec."

She yawns and stretches, easing out the aches in her shoulders from lying sprawled across another girl the night before. She scoops up the pile of clothes on the floor and pulls them, grabbing a shirt off the bed and kissing the sleeping Larissa and A-whatserface goodbye.

"What's up?" Stella asks, stepping out out of the doorway. The adorable new recruit, Marius, is standing with a clipboard- an actual clipboard, isn't he just precious- outside, very carefully not looking at her bare chest as she pulls a shirt on.

"There's been sightings of a cruise ship off the coast," Marius says, the words almost tripping on his tongue in his haste to get them out. "Last seen off the Gullpass, going round the Northern Cliffs."

"Capitol?"

Marius nods. A slow, wide grin spreads across Stella's face, lighting her eyes up.

"Well what the fuck are we waiting here for? Did you get the news out to the rest?"

"No, I-"

"Do you wanna get paid or what? Go tell 'em!"

Marius darts off, leaving Stella to call after him. "Tell them I'll have the ship ready at Gullpass!"

* * *

Forty minutes later Stella's at the helm of the ship, hands gripped with white-knuckled anticipation at the wheel. The buzzing voices of her crew are a comfort behind her, barking orders, grunting with exertion, darting to and from the sides of the ship from Seamus manning the guns all the way to Little Piper clinging to the topmast. On the horizon, a piercing point of light glints like an eye. Wealthy Capitolites take cruises around Four sometimes, to gawk at a glimpse of the Districts, and that's their prize, right there, the huge, garish ship calling out to Stella across the waves.

The flag unfurls behind them- night-black and scored with the white insignia: a ghoulish skull criss-crossed with bones, copied from the old stories. Over-the-top, maybe, but it got the point across pretty well. We aren't here to make friends.

She's had the ship since she was fifteen and she found it washed up on the beach, ripped up on the rocks. She spent nine months patching it up, repainting the hull with tar and hammering over the hull, and another two collecting her crew, trawling the bars and seedier alleys of the District and cajoling common criminals into becoming part of something more. _Thief_ is half the stuff of legends now, a silent predator, a shadow on the ocean raiding Capitol boats and slipping back into the caves where they keep her.

Some of the crew do it to stick it to the Capitol (they never raid Four boats- Stella might be a murderer and a thief but there are lines). Some of them are in it for the money, the cash that comes once they've sold what they've stolen. Some of them just like the companionship, or the protection.

Piper climbs down from the topmast, binoculars swinging from her neck, and taps on Stella's arm.

"The target's windward," she says, "maybe five more minutes. It's Capitol cruise, maybe two-hundred people on board- I dunno, they're all asleep. Couple of lookouts, captain and crew awake as well. Some cleaning staff too."

Stella snatches the binoculars and looks out at the ship. A lone figure jumps and waves wildly on board, finally having spotted them.

"ALRIGHT!" Stella shouts, turning to her ship, "full speed ahead! Everyone up! That means you, Atlanta, the fuck do I pay you for?" She jumps off her deck and strides forward, her knife unsheathed and shining. "Rass, get off your ass before I dump it overboard! Tanner! Cannons!"

The crew jumps into actions, the arms of a single, seamless organism. Wind streams through Stella's hair, cold fingers uncurling dark tendrils and letting them fly free. She spits over the side and grabs the wheel, wrenching _Thief_ back on course as the crew shouts and heaves behind her. The ship's helm slices through the black water at breakneck speed, ripples spreading through Four's sea. _Thief_ is light and graceful on the waters, and the cruise glitters on the horizon like a forbidden fruit.

Stella- Stella does it for the rush. She's never felt at home like she did the first time she took her own ship, with her own tiny crew, out onto the ocean and let it glide free, the wind making them soar over the blue like they were flying. With the breeze stinging her lungs and gulls screaming overhead, every step her heart singing in her chest, boasting with every beat and thump and gush of blood that she was here to stay. On land, at school, in her parents' house she's unbearably slow, constantly feeling like she's caught in that dark, half-conscious blurred stage before one lapses into sleep, voices quiet and murmuring. Here, every sense is sharpened, and the stars are points of razor-cut light above her. Someday she'll get off a ship for the last time, and she'll die before the breath ever leaves her lungs- and then her crew will take her out onto Thief and burn her with it, and whatever twisted soul she has will leave then.

'We're in firing distance," Piper says, her voice high and sweet with anticipation. The waifs girl's eyes glow. "Can- Can I help with the catapult? Please?"

Stella ruffles her hair. "Sure, go for it." She turn around. "We're in firing distance! Tanner, Guppy, Finn, you're on cannons. Atlanta, Rafaela, Piper, get on the catapult." Delighted, Piper springs into action.

"On my count!" Stella barks, "Three! Two! One! Fire!"

 _A breeze trickles through the girl's hair as she runs down the beach, arms folded. The sand is cool on her bare toes, but her tears burn. She hates Mrs Moselle, hates fractions, hates the words and numbers that swim in her brain and never make sense when she wants them to. She can't do it, and it doesn't matter if the stupid Capitol wants her to learns she can't do anything but gym class right. Darkness falls across her flaming cheeks as she shoves herself into a cave, knees hunched up. She'll stay here until they send out a search party to find her._

 _Something brushes against her foot. A black streak of fabric floats above the water, and a skull grins up at her. It's then that she looks up and sees the ship; vast and ragged, rising like a kingdom, blotting out all but a sliver of light. It's terrifying, and it's beautiful, and for the first time in her life the girl falls madly in love._

Three claps of thunder strike the air, and Stella's eyes catch the burst of smoke that erupts from their ship. Someone screams, a loud, high piercing sound, and then the cannonballs fall; one into the water with an explosion of white froth, consternation, one into the side of the ship, crashing into the hull and denting it, and the third, arcing, slams down into the top of the cruise, leaving a crater in the wood. Stella grins.

"Catapults, on my count again!" Stella gives the signal and their makeshift wooden catapult is wheeled forward. Atlanta and Raf set it into place, and little Piper lights their gasoline-drenched cannonball with a single match, turning it into a sphere not of stone but of pure fire.

"Fire!"

The stone flies forward like a comet, a tongue of fire streaming out behind it. It makes its mark dead-centre on the ship. In one moment, the cruise is battered, reeling, but still whole, the captain still desperate but hopeful, trying to pull his ship and passengers to safety. In the next moment, it is consumed by fire.

A single burst of crimson blooms and flowers in an instant, flames licking at the hull of the great wooden thing, clawing and spitting, tearing into the wood with vast tongues of flames that scorch and sink their crimson fangs into the mahogany. Smoke streams upwards, gushing like thick black blood into the sky. If Stella were to look back at her crew she would see the fire mirrored in their own eyes, faces unrecognisable, distorted by shadow and the orange glow of the fire- but her eyes are clinging to every stroke of flame. Screams streak the silence, drowned out by crackling of wood, and backlit figures skitter back and forth, delirious and terrified insects, insignificant against the power of the fire. The water splashes with bodies, driftwood falling, still aflame, from the creaking hull. Stella breathes in the smoke, feels the heat fall on her skin, the surge of adrenaline in her veins. The water all around her teems with death and fire.

Behind her, Piper's golden curls shake with the force of her laughter. The miniature girl puts her face in her hand, half-mad from smoke inhalation and shrieks with joy, tears running down her cheeks as the world around them burns.

* * *

 _AN: Urgh this took way longer than I thought it would._  
 _But maybe still review? Also all your blog reviews last chapter warmed my lil heart so thanks for those!_

 _1\. What did you think of Micah?_

 _2\. What did you think of Aiden?_

 _3\. What did you think of Stella? ALSO ok so I thought her name sounded kinda familiar so I typed "Stella May" into google and YEAH. Try it._

 _4\. What did you think of the chapter as a whole? I tried to include a variety of personalities and reasons for being chosen, so we've got one smol baby who did an oopsie, super chill girl who got framed, and one literally just an actual pirate._

 _I don't like to make promises bcos I suck but expect another chapter in like 1-2 weeks? I'm aiming for 500 words a day, and each chapter is roughly 4500 words so yeah._

 _-Amie_


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